The track was written and produced by Jackson and was recorded while working on his "Bad" album and later revisited while putting together "Dangerous." The title for the song is inspired by a public service announcement that ran on TV from the '60s through the '80s.

Jackson described the inspiration for the song in a note found by Jackson’s Estate:

“Song is about kids being raised in a broken family where the father comes home drunk and the mother is out prostituting and the kids run away from home and t hey become the victims of rape, prostitution and the hunter becomes the hunted. So they are out on the street. Do you know where your children are? It’s twelve o’clock. They are somewhere out on the street. Just imagine how scared they are. It’s about the runaway problem we have in America. They become the victims of prostitution, of selling their bodies.”